question on MB syndication manager

Hi,

We have 2 MB servers MB1 and MB2. I need to bring assets from MB1 to MB2. We have MB syndication server installed on MB1 and I was able to create a publication using the UI. We have only subscription service installed on MB2 and I could use the URL http://localhost/MBSubscription/SubscriptionServiceAdmin.asmx?op=ApprovePublisher on MB2 to approve the publication. When I try to execute the publication from MB1, I get this error
"Status: Error. You have been approved to publish, but the subscriber has not defined a subscription."

I could not find a URL or web service method on MB2 to create a subscription. How do I define a subscription?

TIA

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msnider

The Syndication Manager web UI is used to create both Publications and Subscriptions. You should see two tabs at the bottom of the frame labeled "Publish" and "Subscribe"...click on the "Subscribe" tab and you should see an entry for the publication you created as well as access to controls that will allow you to define a connection to the MediaBin server MB2 and a subscription that uses it and the publication from MB1.

Mark

suj

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your reply. From your reply I assume that i don't need to install syndication manager on MB2.

I did try to create a subscription through MB1 as you suggested.

But when I execute 'test publish' it still gives the following error in the log file located in \\pcmsmb01\MBTempDir\Publications\Logs\ec255555-668c-4144-b4bd-97d8a7bb7230

[7/18/2006 9:51:54 AM]: Beginning Publication #ec255555-668c-4144-b4bd-97d8a7bb7230: test publish.
[7/18/2006 9:51:54 AM]: Status: Transport type: DIME
[7/18/2006 9:51:57 AM]: Status: Error. You have been approved to publish, but the subscriber has not defined a subscription. Please contact the administrator. (Production MediaBin)
[7/18/2006 9:51:57 AM]: Status: Error. No subscribers found; canceling publication.
[7/18/2006 9:51:57 AM]: Step: Keeping temp files.
[7/18/2006 9:51:57 AM]: Ending Publication #ec255555-668c-4144-b4bd-97d8a7bb7230.

Here are the entries in the various tabs in subscription:

test subscription

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Connections
Publication(s): test publish

Destination: Production MediaBin

Content
Root Folder: Media Database
Folder Structure: Keep folder structure

test publish

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MediaBin Publication
Name: test publish
ID: ec255555-668c-4144-b4bd-97d8a7bb7230
Approved: Yes
Contact
Name:
Email: xyz@abc.com

Production MediaBin

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MediaBin Server
Name: PCMSMB02
Port: 32456
Login
Domain: GLOBAL
Username: user1

Is there any step I have missed out? fyi, i confirmed that I was browsing MB2 folder structure while creating the subscription.

The Syndication Manager web UI is used to create both Publications and Subscriptions. You should see two tabs at the bottom of the frame labeled "Publish" and "Subscribe"...click on the "Subscribe" tab and you should see an entry for the publication you created as well as access to controls that will allow you to define a connection to the MediaBin server MB2 and a subscription that uses it and the publication from MB1.

Mark

msnider

You don't need to install the Syndication Manager UI on MB2 since a single UI installation can manage any number of publishers and subscribers as long as they are on the same network (which apparently MB1 and MB2 are on the same network)

However, what components did you install on MB1? There are three components to Syndication Manager....the publication service, the subcription service and the web UI

From the description of your setup, I am assuming that MB1 has the publication service and the UI only and that MB2 has only the subscription service....is this correct?

suj

MB1 and MB2 are on the same network. MB1 has all the 3 (publication, subscription, web client) installed while MB2 has publication and subscription services. I missed out the publication service earlier but I can see the publication service running on MB2.

You don't need to install the Syndication Manager UI on MB2 since a single UI installation can manage any number of publishers and subscribers as long as they are on the same network (which apparently MB1 and MB2 are on the same network)

However, what components did you install on MB1? There are three components to Syndication Manager....the publication service, the subcription service and the web UI

From the description of your setup, I am assuming that MB1 has the publication service and the UI only and that MB2 has only the subscription service....is this correct?

msnider

Make sure that the Subscriber URL defined for the publication on MB1 is pointing to the subscription service on MB2 and not the subscription service on MB1.

Mark

suj

I have verified that the subscriber URL points to MB2. Anything else that i can look for? The strange thing is that there are couple of other publications defined earlier which works with this subscriber. But I dont see any subcriptions apart from what I have set up in the Subscribe tab. These earlier publications were set up by MB consultants & i am not aware how they managed to define a subscription that is not shown in the UI. Is there any other way to define subscription?

Make sure that the Subscriber URL defined for the publication on MB1 is pointing to the subscription service on MB2 and not the subscription service on MB1.

Mark

suj

This issue got resolved after I changed the subscribers tab in Publish to point to MB1 URL. It seems that this URL has to point to the server where the syndication manager is installed. Also I had to do reset the publication timestamp from the "manage publication" link to actually move the assets.

Thanks for your help Mark.

msnider

The URL needs to point to the subscription service....whether that is on MB1 or MB2 doesn't matter as long as you keep track of which one is being used by the publication in question. In other words, if you have two subscription services installed (one on MB1 and one on MB2 ) then you were probably configuring one of them but using the other one and that is why it didn't seem to work.

You only need one installation of Syndication Manager to manage N number of MediaBins if they are all on the same network. Therefore, if MB1 can see the MediaBin server on MB2, then it would probably be wise to have all three components of Syndication Manager installed on MB1 and remove any of the components (the publication service and the subscription service ) on MB2. That would remove some confusion. Also, it would be wise to use the UNC method of file transfer since it is the fastest and most efficient method for intranet applications.

Mark

suj

Thanks Mark,

Yes there was some confusion because of services being installed on MB2 as well. Although the assets are being moved from MB1 to MB2, we still have the following issues.

1) I see that the asset IDs of assets are different when moved to MB2. This is the most critical issue because we
are planning to migrate all assets from MB1 to MB2 and make MB2 the production server. There are existing DCRs
which use assets from MB1. When the switch over happens, the assets cannot be located in MB2 if the asset IDs
are different. For eg. the asset media database/zreserved/ducky.gif has asset ID {CC6246AE-7501-461F-96B8-2E97B064163C}
on MB2 and {08459E3F-F3DC-483B-91C1-0490437406C1} on MB1 resulting in errors while trying to browse the asset
from a TS DCR. Is there a way to ensure that asset IDs are maintained during the publication process?

2) The tmp files are not being deleted - I checked the permissions on the MBSubscription share folder. It has full control
for Everyone.

3) It is not moving all assets in the specified folder from MB1 to MB2. For eg, some of the assets that did
not get moved is myMetadata.xmp, block_with_TOC.ps etc. I have not provided any filter criteria. Is it that syndication works only with known types?

msnider

For part 1, Syndication Manager is not meant to be an agent for exact replication of one MediaBin to another....that type of behavior is best accomplished thru the MediaBin Enterprise Manager's backup and restore function. A subscriber MediaBin has a "copy" of the assets of a publisher MediaBin but those copies are separate entities and therefore will have different identifiers. The original asset id is contained within the Syndicated From metadata field.

For parts 2 and 3, you may want to open a support case which would be a better mechanism to handle your particular issue. In the meantime:

For 2, first check to make sure that the subscriber's web.config file has DeleteFiles=True and that there is no error being reported in the log when the subscriber tries to delete the files.

For 3, all file type should be published if there is not a specific filter restricting them based on file type of other metadata criteria and if they have been modified since the last time the publication ran. So, first ensure that the files were indeed added and\or modified since the last publication timestamp...you can see the last timestamp in the publication's log file or the Syndication Manager UI. Second, try to determine where they are being dropped....either they are not get retrieved out of MB1 (there would be job message errors in the publication log) or they are being retrieved correctly but are failing to either be copied to MB2 (errors in publication log) or failing to insert into MB2 (errors in subscription log)

Mark